The Slightest Chance
by Two Ladies of Quality
Summary: As Sorcerer Supreme, Steven Strange took an oath to protect the universe. As Dr. Strange, he took an oath to save lives. If there's the slightest chance, he's going to do both.


Thirteen years later

Morgan Stark huffed the long forelock of her blue mohawk out of her face as she trudged out of the house and down the long pathway to the sprawling building called The Garage.

"Stupid, dark ages, undusted morons," she muttered. She stomped down the branch of the path that went around to the back door. She was not in the mood to go through the actual garage and moon over the beautiful turn-of-the-century petrofuel cars and decide which one she wanted to sneak out to the Stark Test Track down the hill, one of the few places left where you could drive a gasoline vehicle anymore. Especially at the speeds a Stark drove.

The light over the back door was green, so she yanked the door open and flounced through. She wove around holograms and floating monitors, mostly avoiding kicking one of the scuttling service bots, back toward the sound of plasma cutting. She closed her eyes against the flare, her feet knowing the way without looking. Just as she reached shouting distance, the sound of plasma cut out.

"Daddy!" she cried with every bit of seventeen-year-old outrage available to her, "Mimpsy won't let me get my degree because he says I'm a high school drop-out!" She opened her eyes to pout properly.

Tony Stark turned and switched off his protective goggles. "You are a high school drop-out, floof."

"Daddy!"

Thirteen years earlier

As the dust of Thanos and all his works drifted away, Tony Stark hit the ground and fell back against a rock, staring out at the battlefield but losing focus as something much more distant started to claim his attention.

Peter Parker dropped to his knees in front of him. "Mr. Stark? We won, Mr. Stark . . ." His voice broke and he pulled away from the hands on his shoulders.

Pepper wanted to be gentle, but that was her husband there, and no one had the right to keep her from him. She pushed Peter towards Rhodey and knelt down beside Tony. "Friday-"

Before she could touch him, a green field surrounded him, and Tony stopped moving even as little as he had. She whirled, snarling and wishing for the powers of Extremis.

The man who had taken Tony through that portal in Central Park those years ago stood beside her, a cape swirling around him as he held up glowing hands. Dr. Strange, Tony had called him. A sorcerer. "We have seconds," he said urgently. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Stark - Potts-Stark - oh, hell, Pepper. This was the only way we'd be able to stop Thanos."

"By Tony *dying*?" she cried.

"Yes." The man actually looked pained. "When I remove the Shield of Asclepius . . ."

"Then why!" Rhodey burst out. "Why drag this out like this?"

Strange's grief gave way to arrogance and defiance. "Because before everything else, I took an oath to save lives. Every path I looked at to see what we could do to stop Thanos, they all ended in failure but this one. Billions of lives spared at the cost of Tony Stark's. And I am still enough of an arrogant bastard that if there's the slightest chance to save him, I'm going to take it."

"Enough of a bastard?" muttered a stocky Asian man nearby. "Even more of a bastard."

"Not now, Wong." Strange slumped a little, and Wong jumped forward to prop him up. The light of the shield brightened. "We have to get him somewhere that this level of trauma can be dealt with, now."

Peter leaned forward. "But you looked. You don't know if we save him?"

"I was looking to stop Thanos. I didn't have time to look for epilogues."

"Magic sucks!"

Strange was starting to sweat. "I am holding back *Death* here, people! Can we develop a sense of urgency!"

Black Panther, T'Challa of Wakanda, came up. "What are his injuries?"

"Friday?" Pepper said.

"Radiation damage along the right side of his body, massive shock," the AI replied. "Battle damage from the fight. It's hard to tell through that shield, but it looks bad."

Shuri of Wakanda looked at the bald woman next to her. "How are the hospitals, Okoye?"

"Fully functional, and yes, even the stasis pods."

T'Challa nodded. "We need a portal to the stasis lab. Shuri, Okoye, go ahead and tell them to get ready. Can you get a portal into the lab itself?" he asked Wong.

Wong whistled and waved at the people who had been doing magic during the battle. "Tiffany! Get over here, pinpoint transport placement! Talk to her," he told T'Challa as a woman ran up. "Hang in there, boss," he told Strange, as Tiffany spun up a sparking portal circle with Okoye and Shuri poised to leap through.

The Avengers limped up. "Can I help?" Wanda asked, one hand surrounded by swirling red. She was crying as she looked at Tony.

"No," Strange said brusquely. He barely blinked as Okoye and Shuri jumped through the portal into a white room filled with yelling people.

Wanda bit her lip, holding back sobs.

Wong looked at her, more obviously holding up Strange now. "If we knew what you do, and how it works with what we do, then yes. But without knowing and right now . . ."

She nodded unevenly. "I understand." She wrapped her arms around herself and started rocking. Clint Barton came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. He stared at Tony, laying frozen motionless moments from death, then glanced at Pepper, something that looked like shame in his eyes.

Pepper reached out as close as she could to the shield. "Hold on, Tony," she whispered. Maybe just for a little bit, long enough for Morgan to say good-bye. She didn't want to go home and tell her baby that Daddy wasn't ever coming home, for reals and true this time.

"Brother!" Shuri shouted through the portal. "We're ready! Bring him through!"

"Somebody's going to have to carry him," Strange said. He wobbled. "And maybe me."

"Got it," Peter said, bouncing around Strange to crouch down and slide one arm under the armored legs.

"I'll take him, son." The broad bulk of Captain America leaned down to reach for Tony's shoulders.

"I've got this," Peter snapped, losing all trace of his usual diffidence and apologetics. "And I'm not your son."

"Not! Now!" Strange yelled.

Steve blinked several times. "Let me help?" he asked, his voice cracking. "Please?"

Peter glared, then jerked his head towards Tony's shoulders as he got both arms under the legs. Steve's long arms got a good grip on Tony's upper body, and they lifted him together. Strange held the shield steady, letting Wong lead him toward the portal. T'Challa went first, then Peter and Steve and the wizards. Pepper followed close behind.

And later again

Daddy disconnected the plasma cutter from the framework covering his right hand and gave it to Dummy, then the nanobots reformed into his usual red-and-gold "skin". "Mimpsy, Mimpsy-is that Wentworth Mimpson? He's a biochemist, why does he have any say over your academic progress?"

Morgan flopped onto a nearby stool. "The committee pulls from all the departments. He said you were at school with him."

"We occupied the same space-time coordinates for a while, if that counts." He sat down on his own stool, wincing slightly. Morgan wondered if his new hip joint was acting up. Dummy steadied the stool as he settled. "Oh, let me guess. You're getting your first Ph.D. younger than he did, you're female, and you're a Stark."

"Pretty much," she sighed.

"What the hell does it matter if you didn't finish high school!" he complained, waving his arms around. Morgan was briefly distracted by the delay in response in his right arm. If only he'd let her in there to make adjustments instead of insisting on waiting for Uncle Rhodey to come by. "Most MIT kids bail out of their lesser schools as soon as possible anyway. Why the hell does a Stark need a high school diploma-dear god, I sound like Howard."

"Mimpsy's going on about how the admissions people shouldn't be letting 'legacy students'"-she did finger quotes-"slide on entrance requirements-Daddy, your face shouldn't be going that color." It really made the scars on his face stand out in a not-good way. Beside her, Dummy whirred anxiously. She gave him a pat.

He muttered to himself in something that sounded like Skrullish until he calmed down. "All right, so you need to finish your high school degree." He shuddered. "You've got to be able to test out of it, what credits are you missing? Biology? Home Ec? Badminton? Probably better not be Home Ec, you don't cook any better than I do."

She sighed. "English Lit."

"Oh."

"It requires an essay."

"Well, it's not like you've never cracked a book that didn't have math in it. Shakespeare's got some surprisingly decent stuff, there's Bradbury-"

"Women Writers of the Regency Period is what they're doing this term. I'd have to petition to do something else and that could take months so I'm stuck with Pride and Putrid and Sense and Senseless and all those stupid girls in white dresses coughing delicately and falling over dead!"

"Ah. Those movies your Mom watches when she's mad at me."

"Yes! Swooning and giggling behind fans and getting all aflutter because some idiot tipped his hat at you."

He was clearly fighting against smiling. "I think there may be less falling over dead than you think."

"They would be better if more people were falling over dead!"

He finally just burst out laughing at her, and she crossed her arms and humphed.

Mom poked her head around a mini particle accelerator. "I take it she told you her news."

Daddy held out his arms. "Pep! Moon of my night, light of my universe!" Mom walked over and let him wrap his arms around her waist as she leaned down to hug his head.

"So, I just got off the phone with the Dean's office at MIT," she said.

"Uh, oh," Morgan and her father said at the same time.

"And," Mom continued, "they agreed with me that since Morgan clearly exceeded all the standard metrics for admittance to the school in the first place and has maintained exceptional grades in all her classes-"

"Except for that inexplicable bobble in ceramic metallurgy," Daddy said darkly.

"Oh, please, I got a B."

Mom cleared her throat. "-the advancement committee has ruled that Dr. Mimpson's objection is trivial and there is nothing preventing Morgan from being awarded her doctorate on schedule."

Morgan shoved her fists in the air. "Yay, Mom!"

Dad smiled up at Mom. "My hero."

She leaned down to kiss him, and Morgan looked away with a theatrical sigh. "Parents," she said to Dummy. "Aren't they supposed to be past this stage by now?" Dummy cocked his head as he watched the pair and made a sound very close to a happy sigh. She leaned her head on the bot and looked at Daddy's workbench, trying to figure out what he was working on.

It looked like replacement plates for the War Machine armor. Uncle Rhodey must be due back soon. She looked up at the other side of the big workspace, towards the armor bays on the far wall. The Rescue armor was there, along with a couple of earlier versions of War Machine. In the last, darkened bay was an Iron Man armor. Morgan wished she could have seen her father fly. Mom had said that inner ear damage from his last fight kept him out of the air now.

She barely remembered all those months in Wakanda, Daddy in that tank healing. She knew they'd invented some ceramic-resin-vibranium alloy to rebuild the right side of his ribcage, and Wanda had been there with her red tendrils moving over his body. Her clearest memory was sitting on Petey's lap, with her mother crying somewhere and saying "Shouldn't we just let him rest?" and Shuri telling her "I really think we can do this, but we'll do what you think is best." There had been a faintly scary-looking man with a beard like Daddy's who had sat cross-legged in midair in front of Daddy's tank, but she's fairly sure she dreamed him. His cape had patted her on top of the head when she'd cried because she couldn't hug Daddy.

"You're looking pensive over there, Moon-Pie," Daddy said. "No world domination plots until you're twenty-one, or there won't be any not-so-lonely goatherds in your future."

She looked up in outrage. "I was promised adorable Wakandan baby goats when I got my first Ph.D."

"I can have adorable baby goats here in ten minutes. Dummy will love them."

Mom tapped his nose. "Those goatherds sent invitations, and you accepted."

Daddy pouted. "Every time we see them, there's apologies lurking in the corners. You know I'm allergic."

"I'm sure we can get you shots for that."

Morgan gave her best dismissive headtoss. "No matter," she said dramatically. "Shuri gave me a standing invitation of her own. She wants my help on her astronautical navigation system."

Daddy gave her a stern look. "Are you trading flirtatious science notes with the Princess Elder of Wakanda?"

"Da-ad! She's twice my age. I love her for her mind."

Mom leaned down towards Daddy. "Age hasn't kept her from making eyes at my Assistant Director of Chemical Engineering Development."

"Really?" Daddy nodded thoughtfully. "That could be a useful pairing."

Morgan stood with all the dignity she'd copied from her mother and walked away. "I'm going to tell Petey that you're trying to matchmake for him again, and he'll sic Aunt May on you."

"Who do you think we plot with?" Daddy called after her.

She turned at the door to get the last word, but hesitated. Mom had her hand against the scars covering the right side of Daddy's face. He looked like one of his headaches was coming on, but he smiled up at her like Morgan hoped someone would smile at her someday. "Still worth it," he said softly. He brushed something off her cheek. "Thank you."

She giggled and left before she had to witness her parents being any more ridiculous together.


End file.
